Freedom ef the Press in the Arab World

Censorship and State Control

of the Press in the Arab World
Jihad Khazen

Two letter bombs sent to the offices of Al Hayat in London, Washington, and
New York in January 1998 gave us our fifteen minutes of fame. The world me-
dia descended on us, and a recurring point in their coverage was that although
Al Hayat is relatively free, it still has to publish what it is told to publish.
In fact, we are not told what to publish. In all my years as editor in chief,
whether in Beirut, Jeddah, or London, I have never been told to publish any-
thing. But I have been asked not to publish something more times than I care to
remember. Ours is a system of denial. We commit sins of omission, not com-
mission. Arab information ministries are mockingly referred to as ministries of
denial or praise: Deny the news, or praise the ruler. A westerner once observed,
"Never believe the news until it is officially denied."This is even more true of
the Arab press.
In the Arab psyche, news is virtually synonymous with scandal. When the
news is bad, the reporter is scandalized more than the hero, or villain, of his
story. Arab linen, dirty or clean, must not be washed in public if possible. This
may be part of the tradition of suppressing dissent. A critic is seen as a traitor
to his tribe. If he writes in English for a foreign audience, he is ostracized as a
traitor to the nation. Still, dissent is rife in the Arab press, and some journalists
have paid with their lives for their views, including the founder of my newspa-
per, Al Hayat, who was assassinated in his office in 1966.

Censorship Today

The most prevalent form of censorship is self-censorship. Sitting at my desk, I

feel at times that I'm not so much covering the news as covering it up. Editors
know the dos and the don'ts of their trade, so when I am shown a story, it is
often to shift responsibility from the editor concerned to me, should the paper
get banned the next day. We can afford to be banned in Sudan, where the cur-
rency is almost worthless, but if we are banned in Saudi Arabia, we stand to lose
tens of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue. Consequently, we are more
careful with Saudi news; it is a matter of economics, even of survival.
Self-censorship is followed by state censorship. The trouble with the Arab
world is that each country has its own sensitive story that might get us banned.
Press/Politics 4(3):87-92
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88 Censorship and State Control of the Press in the Arab World

In Morocco, it is Polisario rebels; in Algeria, the Front Islamique Socialist du

Salut (Islamic Salvation Front); in Tunisia, theAl-Nahda Party. In Libya, the sen-
sitive story is also the Islamic opposition. In Egypt, the proscribed story is the
terrorist groups, and in both Egypt and Sudan, it is the Halayeb border conflict.
In Saudi Arabia, there are many sensitive stories, especially those concerning
religion, women, and the military. In Bahrain and Qatar, the prohibited story is
their border dispute. And so forth. In all Arab countries, perhaps with one or
two exceptions, criticism of the head of state and his immediate family is taboo.
In some cases, it is tantamount to signing one's own death warrant.
In one respect, conditions are so bad that they are good: The fact that ev-
ery Arab country is preoccupied with its own special problem means that a
journalist has greater freedom in tackling the more important, but general, is-
sues like war and peace with Israel. Some writers at Al Hayat are completely
opposed to the peace process; others support it. This has hardly ever caused us
a problem. But if we write about fundamentalist groups in London, we risk
being banned in Algeria and Tunisia; if we write about women's right to drive
vehicles, we risk the wrath of the Saudi censor. Even the peace process is not
always a safe topic. Al Hayat was the first Arab newspaper to interview Israeli
government leaders and to publish articles by Israeli writers. But as the Syrians
became edgy over their stalemated negotiations with Israel, Al Hayat suddenly
came under attack in Lebanon "for dealing with the enemy," and we had to re-
consider our position.
Things are not quite as gloomy as I might be painting them. Al Hayat was
banned in certain Arab countries sixty times in 1994, thirty-five times in 199 5,
twenty times in 1996, and twenty times again in 1997.
Arab states are not the only ones in the Middle East to suffer from censor-
ship. Take, for example, our neighbor Israel. A 1994 Washington Post article de-
tailed the way in which, since the early 1950s, Israeli editors have coexisted
with military censorship, which covers everything about the vast defense facto-
ries, as well as espionage activities, government purchases of fuel abroad, and
the movement of oil tankers in Israeli ports. 1 The legal affairs commentator for
the Maariv newspaper, Moshe Negbi, said, "The Israeli media as a whole does
not have a real notion of freedom of the press and what its real role should be."

The State's Role in the Media

The question of state ownership or subsidizing of the media is one of the most
sensitive questions in discussing censorship in the Middle East. It is often
charged that a small number of governments dominate the media, using them
as a mouthpiece. I will argue that this view of the media is mistaken: The real
picture is more complicated. For example, an individual who is close to certain

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 Khazen 89

government circles may also have his own independent business interests. Ifhe
invests heavily in the media, is this to promote government policies through the
media, is it to promote himself, or is it a private investment? The answer may
be one of these three alternatives or a combination.
It is the case that some kind of subsidies, whether by state or by individuals,
will continue to be necessary to the survival of much of the Arab media. To fairly
contrast the Arab media with their counterparts in other parts of the world, the
Arab media must be seen in perspective. In global terms, Arab advertising rev-
enue is tiny-only about a third of 1 percent of that of the world media.
The revenues of Arab newspapers are dwarfed by those of their U.S. coun-
terparts. A 1997 survey showed that the Times Mirror Co., the New York
Times, Inc., the Washington Post Co., and Dow Jones & Co. each recorded an
income larger, or close to, that of all of the Arab media combined. 2 Against a
revenue of more than $2 billion for the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times,
the corresponding figures for the Arab press are modest indeed. For example,
a leading Saudi national newspaper had a total revenue of 15 2 million Saudi
riyals ($40.5 million) in 1997, a figure that includes government subsidies.
Adequate advertising would give the Arab media a measure of freedom
from state control, but despite the growth in advertising expenditure in the
Arab world in the last few years, levels of expenditure on advertising are still
extremely low, not only by western standards, but also compared to Israel.

Satellite Television

In considering Arab censorship, we must pay attention to the recent advent of

satellite TV and the Internet, which are paving the way for the easing of cen-
sorship, as they are proving impossible to control. Already, some satellite chan-
nels received in Saudi Arabia are showing programs that would have been un-
thinkable only a year or two back. It was the popularity of CNN's unrivaled
coverage of the Gulf War that opened the eyes of Gulf investors to the enor-
mous potential of satellite TV. They rushed into the satellite TV business with
great expectations. As in the West, where there is fierce competition between
media tycoons, prominent Arabs had ambitions to set up powerful media em-
pires. Although western commentators have emphasized the undoubted politi-
cal aspect of investments in the Arab communications business, there was also
a strong business motivation among some of the big investors.
The firstArab satellite service to be set up in the wake of the GulfWar was
the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), created in 1991 in London with
an initial six hours of airtime daily, which has since more than doubled. Other
players have joined the club, including Orbit Communications, Arab Radio and
Television, Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, Star Asia, and Turk Telec-

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90 Censorship and State Control of the Press in the Arab World

komunikasyon. A new arrival is Al-Jazirah TV, which is owned by the Qatari

government-showing that it is not only the Saudis who are significant partici-
pants in the satellite TV scene.
Recent estimates have put the number of satellite dishes in Saudi Arabia at
over one million, despite an official ban on them. The number in Kuwait is be-
tween thirty and forty thousand, and in Algeria, there are more than half a mil-
lion. Other Arab countries have no restrictions on satellite dishes and have been
experiencing growth rates of 30 percent.
The launching of satellite services has not been completely smooth. When
Orbit entered into a partnership with the BBC World Service in 1994 to set up
an Arabic-service television, the BBC, anxious not to jeopardize its reputation,
insisted on editorial control. At the time the agreement was reached, some ob-
servers predicted that a clash between the two sides-one of them susceptible
to the pressures of censorship, the other insisting on full editorial freedom-was
inevitable. Sure enough, a serious strain developed in the arrangement when
Mohamad al-Masaari of the Saudi religious opposition sought asylum in the
United Kingdom. In Saudi eyes, the BBC used Al-Masaari as an undisputedly re-
liable source for what was allegedly going on in Saudi Arabia. He was frequently
shown on the screen and was constantly given pride of place in news bulletins. It
came as little surprise when Orbit, which is totally owned by the Saudi Al-
Mawarid Group, scrapped the contract with the BBC because, as an Orbit
spokesman put it in 1996, the BBC failed to show regard for "Islamic sensitivi-
ties in the region." For its part, the BBC could not accept Orbit's interference.
The "sensitivities" in the Gulf region are prone to affect almost any pro-
gram: Even women presenting calisthenics have to appear in loose track suits
rather than more revealing outfits. Commercials for liquor and other "vices"
are, of course, not permitted. As commercial expediency attracts satellite TV
channels to the Gulf, their programs are tailored to suit the conservative moral
code of the peoples of the region. So, although satellite television has been a
great improvement over terrestrial state-owned programming, the new phe-
nomenon was severely tamed so as to fulfill the promise of variety and vast
selection of entertainment, but not necessarily that of openness and intellectual
emancipation. Nonetheless, satellite dishes can pick up more stations than just
those aimed at a particular country. Further efforts will undoubtedly be made
in particular Arab countries to ban satellite dishes, but it seems that those push-
ing for control are fighting a losing battle.

The Internet

An even newer means of crossing boundaries and evading censors is the

Internet. Web sites related to the Arab world are proliferating rapidly. Our
newspaper, along with other pan-Arab or local newspapers, is available on the

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 Khazen 91

Net. In newsgroups,Arabs from all over the world are linked in hot discussions
of Middle Eastern politics, and some dissident groups have set up Web sites. For
the Arab communities scattered over the globe, the Internet really can provide
an Arab "global village."
Controlling access to the Internet is very difficult, if not impossible, even
in the Arab world. Even if there is no local service provider, subscribers who
can afford the telephone charges can use a provider in another country. If the
authorities in the West are finding it difficult to screen out what they consider
sexually unacceptable material, how will those in the Arab world screen out
what they consider to be politically unacceptable? Some Arab countries felt
threatened by the advent of fax machines some years ago and went to great
pains to try to keep track of who had them. The Internet is much less control-
lable. Of course, only a limited number of people in the Arab world have ac-
cess, but it is spreading in homes, university departments, and in the "cyber
cafes" that are springing up in several Arab countries.
What will the impact of these new developments be on censors in the Arab
world? Will the censors become more realistic? Or will they continue to
struggle to impose their will?
I believe the censors will try to impose their will, and they will fail. For
some time now, the Saudi Information Ministry has planned to receive all cable
channels and retransmit them to subscribers in an effort to control content and
block undesirable programs. But this plan is faltering, and I cannot see it achiev-
ing its undeclared goals.

A Footnote

Finally, I would like to add a footnote derived from my personal experience.You

make a mistake when you measure other people by your own yardstick; the
Arab media are different from other media, and control of the media in the
Arab world differs from one country to the next. The Arab media are anything
but monolithic. There is no state committee that meets in secret and assigns
parts of the control to this prince or that sheikh.
Asharq Al-Awsat is the flagship of the Saudi press. As its first editor, I was re-
sponsible for its launch in London in 1978. Its two Saudi owners wanted to re-
vive a family tradition of newspaper ownership (their family owned the Al
Madina newspaper in J eddah until it was transformed into a public institution).
I wanted to get out of Jeddah; my wife refused to live there. There was no offi-
cial involvement until the newspaper was published and proved highly success-
ful. Now the chairman is Prince Ahmed Bin Salman Bin Abdul Aziz.
In 1988, Jameel Kamel Mroue, the eldest son of the late founder of Al
Hayat, and I cooperated in relaunching Al Hayat after a twelve-year hiatus be-
cause of the Lebanese civil war. Prince Khaled bin Sultan binAbdulAziz became

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92 Censorship and State Control of the Press in the Arab World

a majority shareholder in the new Al Hayat and is now the sole owner. When
Jameel Mroue sought my help to relaunch Al Hayat (the stablemate of my old
English language newspaper, The Daily Star, in Beirut) and we embarked on the
project along with his two younger brothers, no state policy was involved. Al
Hayat is today privately owned by a Saudi citizen, the same way the Times of
London is owned by an Australian and the Daily Telegraph by a Canadian.
Having played a major part in founding Asharq Al-Awsat and relaunching Al
Hayat, I am in a position to underline the absence of any government involve-
ment in initiating these two publishing ventures. But I must quickly add that
without the Saudi market, neither newspaper, nor any of the large Arab televi-
sion networks, would survive. We need the pan-Arab and local advertisements
from that market. Hence, the indirect-some would say unhealthy-influence
of the state over the media.

Notes

1. David Hoffman, "Israeli Editors Begin to Question Army's Peacetime Censorship," Wash-
in9ton Post, July 23, 1994:A12.
2. "100 Leading Media Companies by Revenue," Advertisin9A9e, Aug. 18, 1997.

Biographical Note

Jihad Khazen was editor in chief of Al Hayat until June 1998. He now writes a daily column
for the London-based Arabic-language newspaper.
Address: 66 Hammersmith Rd., Kensington Centre, London W14 8YT, United Kingdom;
phone: 44-171-602-9988; fax: 44-171-371-4215; e-mail: khazen@alhayat.com.

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